Okay, you got me with the "time domain reflectometer." That sounds like something Professor Frink might mention on The Simpsons.
Seriously, though, how about a little detail on what that does? I suppose I could Google it, but here's my guess:
The device measures the distance along the line to an increased area of inductive load by timing the reflection of a signal from that part of the line. The helicopter then flies out that far and looks for an antenna.
Here's another question: Why are British power companies referred to as 'hydro?' Is hydro-electric the default method of producing electricity there? Or is power transmitted around the country using high pressure hydraulic lines and then converted to electricity on site?:-)
When I was growing up, I lived in the Midwest and wondered about all the people in California living with mudslides, earthquakes and wildfires. While I was still living there, a tornado destroyed a few houses about six miles away from my home. (No direct effect on me)
Now I live in California, and there have been a few earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides. I wouldn't be suprised if everyone (with American television) had heard about them recently. I have been directly affected only by having seen the fires from the safety of an airplane, and having felt one earthquake.
Anyway, the news of (any) disaster makes it sound pretty bad, but each disaster only affects a small percentage of the population. (That's small when compared with the number of people who hear about it.) What I don't get is why people would want to deal with bad traffic every day, which is like a minor disaster they can count on experiencing. That seems like the real reason not to live in places where everyone else lives.
For what it's worth, I live way out in the desert.
How about a [mythical] camera that records location of each photo along with compass direction and elevation of the view. Then, combined with digital terrain elevation data (probably available free from the government) one could map the image to the planet's surface. Eventually, as the world gets photographed, we could gradually collect high-resolution images of the earth's surface without expensive spy satellites.
Some of these stores allow you to just give your telephone number if you have forgotten your card. If you happen to overhear someone doing this in front of you some day, you can remember that number and use it in the future to get the discount. I have not tried this, but the cashier is usually parient if you give the number wrong and have to give it again (say you're new in town, or whatever...)
We are about 100 years from anything at all happening, depending on whom you ask.
The trends we are seeing now will not last 100 years (except maybe the ones having to do with geology and astronomy).
100 years ago, we probably could have predicted 2 horses in every garage and train service to anywhere in the world. Maybe some could have even predicted two cars in every garage and a horse in every pot. I submit that all such predictions are meaningless, even if they prove to be correct.
Banks are heavily regulated to reduce collusion and monopolistic practices. I think the RIAA is free of such regulation, so all members tend to have similar 'deals' for artists.
The analogy can be taken further by noticing the internet-based competition to both industries. Magnatune and Ditech are notable examples of each.
Well, you caught me. I don't really feel that way regarding the capital of New York. It was just a handy example that was already provided.
In the broader sense, jargon is often used in such a way to exclude non-members of some groups from conversation. In polite society, it's not intentionally done (that would be rude), but other times it is used to make the square peg leave the vicinity of the round hole it was trying to fill. Such jargon is very similar to a piece of trivia (for example, who knows what GNU stands for? Be sure to laugh at those who don't, to make sure they go away.)
As far as whether I have anything interesting to say to a Mexican, perhaps I don't, but please don't lump all Mexicans together like that. They hate that.:-)
I found that if I just pretended the first paragraph wasn't there at all, a readable post was left over. The first time through, however, when I tried to parse the first paragraph, I was left with confusion.
The way I see it, if it's from somebody that doesn't know the capital of New York, I don't want to read it. I'm sure each person could figure out some piece of trivia that, knowing it, would qualify people to send email to them.
I think you are missing the distributed reporting that is happening on the internet right now, with Slashdot as an example. While many so-called news stories are repeated over and over by the mass media, they can easily be lumped together and weighted appropraitely by modern technology.
Google news is a prime example of this. It is easy to find a story, and the mass media stories are lumped on the front page. A 'more like this' link allows you to view multitudinous other reports on the subject. Most of those are exactly the same, spread by the wire services and posted to myriad web pages. However, this makes the ones that are different stand out precisely because they are different. In fact, it is often striking the difference between western reports and those from Al Jazeera or other non-western source.
On the other hand, this really only applies to the internet right now. Television and radio are still controlled by the corporations you mention. Newspapers are a mixed bag. Some are huge corporate entities, but there are also many neighborhood papers that mainly discuss evening entertainment. I think some of them have room for actual news, but they aren't frequent enough to be useful as a news source. Newspapers are, in general, too slow to be responsive to people's news needs, when stories can break on television immediately (such as the 9/11 attacks).
This story of the news anchor reporting from his home in Florida seems to point more toward the distribution of the media than the consolidation of it. That is, if studio equipment is cheap enough that it can now be installed in someone's home, how far away can we be from the common man putting together his own news outlet for local stories or commentary on international issues. Distribution is the biggest problem, but moving data gets easier every day. I have tuned into some pretty outlandish political internet radio stations that are not at all in tune with the prevailing groupthink (not mainstream media by any means), so how far behind is streaming video? The only problem with the media today is that it is so damn easy to get news while sitting on one's couch with remote in hand. So, for now, television rules. Technology is about making things easier, though. Some day, many different news sources will all be easy to see. First hand web-cam footage of newsworthy events will probably be among the choices. What happens when a tourist can film a significant event with a digital camcorder and use a mobile phone to put the footage on the internet for all to see? It won't happen tomorrow, but probably will within my lifetime.
One of the pitfalls of predicting the future is to extrapolate current trends without end. Often, that makes for good science fiction, but in reality, trends taper off and counter trends take over. There was a book written (about this) in the early 80's called The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. Many of the references are dated, but the parts about 'electronic cottages' allowing workers to work from anywhere is pretty interesting. The Amazon reviews are probably a better analysis than I can give. Anyway, major point to take away: Trends don't continue as far as we might think.
One could make a case for the crap quality being designed in, because it takes 24h39m for a day to pass. If I ever got a watch like that, I would consider it slow (as crap).
if youre [sic] in it for the long haul or you install it on large enough of a scale, with the energy you save over incandescent, it will pay for itself.
...unless, by some chance, you can find someone willing to pay you interest on that %50,000 if you don't squander it on LED lighting. If you made %1 annually on your money, you could buy a lot of light bulbs every year. If you made just a bit more than that, you could buy a lot of electricity to light them.
On top of that, if you ever went blind, you could still use the $50,000 on something cool, like a Beowulf cluster.
It is, in fact, interesting to see what sides/. takes in any given intellectual property issue. If every patent infringement suit were treated the same, we wouldn't even care about the details. The fact that the relevance of the details is being debated here says something, at least.
I think it has more to do with getting enough speed soon enough to experience the acceleration at the time demanded by the scenario. There is an equation with speed, the radius of the centrifuge, and a dash of salt that may shed some light on this. I say 'may' because I don't know the equation, and I'm not going to look it up. I think it will show that a lot of speed needs to be generated quickly for rapid G onset given a reasonable centrifuge radius (which is probably about 30 feet).
After a while of rotating in a centrifuge, the false cues are filtered out. The inner ear detects changes in rotation state. Absent any change, the mind assumes lack of rotation.
This means that after a little time in the centrifuge, the pilot feels normal, and only notices the scenario-based changes in acceleration.
The problem is that there needs to be an acceleration to apply these G forces. Short of a machine that can modulate local gravity (science fiction at the time of this writing), it takes a pretty big centrifuge to be able to mimic the forces in a tactical jet.
A rapid onset of G force would require a centrifuge to rapidly speed up to increase the centripetal acceleration to the appropriate value. Without a centrifuge, any acceleration is limited to the size of the control hydraulics.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, though, how about a little detail on what that does? I suppose I could Google it, but here's my guess:
The device measures the distance along the line to an increased area of inductive load by timing the reflection of a signal from that part of the line. The helicopter then flies out that far and looks for an antenna.
Here's another question: Why are British power companies referred to as 'hydro?' Is hydro-electric the default method of producing electricity there? Or is power transmitted around the country using high pressure hydraulic lines and then converted to electricity on site? :-)
These questions keep me awake at night (briefly).
Now I live in California, and there have been a few earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides. I wouldn't be suprised if everyone (with American television) had heard about them recently. I have been directly affected only by having seen the fires from the safety of an airplane, and having felt one earthquake.
Anyway, the news of (any) disaster makes it sound pretty bad, but each disaster only affects a small percentage of the population. (That's small when compared with the number of people who hear about it.) What I don't get is why people would want to deal with bad traffic every day, which is like a minor disaster they can count on experiencing. That seems like the real reason not to live in places where everyone else lives.
For what it's worth, I live way out in the desert.
The only hard part would be the implementation.
Some of these stores allow you to just give your telephone number if you have forgotten your card. If you happen to overhear someone doing this in front of you some day, you can remember that number and use it in the future to get the discount. I have not tried this, but the cashier is usually parient if you give the number wrong and have to give it again (say you're new in town, or whatever...)
The trends we are seeing now will not last 100 years (except maybe the ones having to do with geology and astronomy).
100 years ago, we probably could have predicted 2 horses in every garage and train service to anywhere in the world. Maybe some could have even predicted two cars in every garage and a horse in every pot. I submit that all such predictions are meaningless, even if they prove to be correct.
Charge into life with a plastic boy. Put him down by your side, let your head be your guide...
I forget the rest.
The analogy can be taken further by noticing the internet-based competition to both industries. Magnatune and Ditech are notable examples of each.
That attitude was affected, to provoke reaction. And I've got nothing better to do than read AC replies (sadly).
In the broader sense, jargon is often used in such a way to exclude non-members of some groups from conversation. In polite society, it's not intentionally done (that would be rude), but other times it is used to make the square peg leave the vicinity of the round hole it was trying to fill. Such jargon is very similar to a piece of trivia (for example, who knows what GNU stands for? Be sure to laugh at those who don't, to make sure they go away.)
As far as whether I have anything interesting to say to a Mexican, perhaps I don't, but please don't lump all Mexicans together like that. They hate that. :-)
I found that if I just pretended the first paragraph wasn't there at all, a readable post was left over. The first time through, however, when I tried to parse the first paragraph, I was left with confusion.
No spam?!? Ewww!
I don't like spam?
Spam, spam, spam, spam.....
The way I see it, if it's from somebody that doesn't know the capital of New York, I don't want to read it. I'm sure each person could figure out some piece of trivia that, knowing it, would qualify people to send email to them.
Google news is a prime example of this. It is easy to find a story, and the mass media stories are lumped on the front page. A 'more like this' link allows you to view multitudinous other reports on the subject. Most of those are exactly the same, spread by the wire services and posted to myriad web pages. However, this makes the ones that are different stand out precisely because they are different. In fact, it is often striking the difference between western reports and those from Al Jazeera or other non-western source.
On the other hand, this really only applies to the internet right now. Television and radio are still controlled by the corporations you mention. Newspapers are a mixed bag. Some are huge corporate entities, but there are also many neighborhood papers that mainly discuss evening entertainment. I think some of them have room for actual news, but they aren't frequent enough to be useful as a news source. Newspapers are, in general, too slow to be responsive to people's news needs, when stories can break on television immediately (such as the 9/11 attacks).
This story of the news anchor reporting from his home in Florida seems to point more toward the distribution of the media than the consolidation of it. That is, if studio equipment is cheap enough that it can now be installed in someone's home, how far away can we be from the common man putting together his own news outlet for local stories or commentary on international issues. Distribution is the biggest problem, but moving data gets easier every day. I have tuned into some pretty outlandish political internet radio stations that are not at all in tune with the prevailing groupthink (not mainstream media by any means), so how far behind is streaming video? The only problem with the media today is that it is so damn easy to get news while sitting on one's couch with remote in hand. So, for now, television rules. Technology is about making things easier, though. Some day, many different news sources will all be easy to see. First hand web-cam footage of newsworthy events will probably be among the choices. What happens when a tourist can film a significant event with a digital camcorder and use a mobile phone to put the footage on the internet for all to see? It won't happen tomorrow, but probably will within my lifetime.
One of the pitfalls of predicting the future is to extrapolate current trends without end. Often, that makes for good science fiction, but in reality, trends taper off and counter trends take over. There was a book written (about this) in the early 80's called The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. Many of the references are dated, but the parts about 'electronic cottages' allowing workers to work from anywhere is pretty interesting. The Amazon reviews are probably a better analysis than I can give. Anyway, major point to take away: Trends don't continue as far as we might think.
How about "if I don't hear the Beatles by 17 January, 5:30pm, I will just die."
I'll probably lose karma for saying this, but you are a fuckstick.
I used to live there, and did see a shuttle launch from work. It was pretty impressive to see somthing that far away.
One could make a case for the crap quality being designed in, because it takes 24h39m for a day to pass. If I ever got a watch like that, I would consider it slow (as crap).
On another note, it seemed to me when I read it years ago that it didn't really mesh with the plot of the trilogy, but was more of a stand-alone work.
There is a lot of insight to go around in this world, but most of it is Off Topic. Just a hint.
On top of that, if you ever went blind, you could still use the $50,000 on something cool, like a Beowulf cluster.
It is, in fact, interesting to see what sides /. takes in any given intellectual property issue. If every patent infringement suit were treated the same, we wouldn't even care about the details. The fact that the relevance of the details is being debated here says something, at least.
1. It's normally called the X Window System, or X11.
2. Most people on Slashdot already know about it.
Then the bit about algebra using 'x' as a common variable name (probably since Euclid's time) comes back to me, and it all makes sense again.
I think it has more to do with getting enough speed soon enough to experience the acceleration at the time demanded by the scenario. There is an equation with speed, the radius of the centrifuge, and a dash of salt that may shed some light on this. I say 'may' because I don't know the equation, and I'm not going to look it up. I think it will show that a lot of speed needs to be generated quickly for rapid G onset given a reasonable centrifuge radius (which is probably about 30 feet).
This means that after a little time in the centrifuge, the pilot feels normal, and only notices the scenario-based changes in acceleration.
A rapid onset of G force would require a centrifuge to rapidly speed up to increase the centripetal acceleration to the appropriate value. Without a centrifuge, any acceleration is limited to the size of the control hydraulics.